In a recent discussion, one of our participants linked an unsigned article at the Family Research Institute’s website which takes an uncompromising stand on the immorality of homosexuality. The author denounces Dr. James Dobson’s idea that homosexuality is not a chosen behavior, but the result of a “gender identity disorder” caused by developmental factors such as “loneliness, rejection, affirmation, intimacy, identity, relationships, parenting, self-hatred, gender confusion, and a search for belonging.” Dobson posits that “homosexuality is not primarily about sex. It is about everything else…” The FRI author disagrees fiercely with that view. He says (using graphic language
to illustrate the point) that homosexual behavior is, quite simply, a vice, which, like other vices, its practitioners freely choose or allow themselves to become habituated to because they enjoy it.

While the article is weakened by a tendentious tone and somewhat crude argumentation, I think there’s something to the “freely chosen vice” thesis.
A section on gay pride parades, for example, shows how homosexuals’ organized, flamboyant transgression of society’s norms during these events is utterly different from the public manifestations of any other group. This backs up the idea that homosexuality is not an emotional disorder, but a consciously embraced rebellion against nature, morality, and society.

The exhibitionist side of homosexuality also fits with the modern American cult of personal liberation, in which ordinary middle class people unselfconsciously talk about their private life on tv, go around in public wearing incredibly sloppy and ugly clothing, regard co-ed bathrooms in college dorms as normal, and freely engage in intimate cell phone conversations in front of total strangers. Something in the modern world released this bizarre and unsettling—and now almost universal—exhibitionism which is an expression of the liberated ego. The gay movement could be seen as the most extreme expression of this liberated culture, epitomizing its narcissistic, reductive, and transgressive agenda. Those qualities are particularly seen, I would suggest, in the separation of sex from any larger context. Sex goes wrong, in art as well as in life, when it is separated out, made a thing unto itself instead of being experienced as part of a larger human world. And, as is commonly recognized, homosexuals tend to treat sex that way far more than do heterosexuals, not only in their personal attitudes, but in their artistic and cultural expressions.

While the above considerations would seem to give further support to the “freely chosen vice” theory of homosexuality, it nevertheless does not seem to be a completely sufficient theory. For one thing, it doesn’t account for the fact, described by some psychologists, that homosexuals are driven to their behavior by an uncontrollable anxiety which they experience if they don’t engage in the behavior. This view of homosexuality as a sort of slavery to which a person is driven against his will may seem passé, coming as it does from a period a few decades ago when homosexuality was much less socially accepted than it is today, and much less likely to be the object of a fully voluntary choice. But even though the behavior is not nearly as socially dangerous as it once was, it is physically dangerous. Many gays nevertheless continue to risk their own lives and those of others in pursuit of their particular sex practices. In such cases, the motive could well be a desire for pleasure, but it is a desire that is compulsive, not one that is simply or freely or naturally chosen.

However, that raises the further question whether the experienced compulsion is different in kind from that associated with any other disordered, addictive behavior. As everyone knows, the more we indulge our destructive impulses, the more power they have over us. In this regard homosexuality would still be seen, not as a mental affliction, but as a classic form of sin, a self-created hell, even if its leading inhabitants call it a heaven.

There is yet another possible weakness in the FRI article, which is that in its one-dimensional emphasis on extreme homosexual behaviors it ignores the more sedate gays who seem to have stable long-term relationships and lead quiet, responsible, and productive lives. From the point of view of moral traditionalists, however, the existence of such “responsible” gay relationships, along with society’s recognition of them, is normalizing what remains, at bottom, a vice, and thus is far more subversive of social and moral order than the frankly irresponsible and marginal kind of homosexual relationship.

The discussion brings us to a question that goes to the heart of how conservatives are to cope with the issue of gay liberation. Clearly homosexual conduct is morally wrong, a sin. But are we so sure that in all cases homosexuality is nothing but sin, as the FRI insists? In other words, from the point of view of the homosexuals themselves, is their homosexual attraction always and fundamentally different from the attraction of a man toward a woman? Some homosexual spokesmen—Andrew Sullivan comes to mind—claim that there is no subjective difference between the two, and that therefore to treat homosexual relationships as offensive and anti-social is terribly unfair and dehumanizing to homosexuals. Whether this idea is valid or not, it seems to me that we conservatives fail to meet the other side’s position when we simply declare that homosexual conduct is a sin, period. What I am suggesting here, somewhat tortuously, is that for the conservative side to win this battle, it must engage and defeat the liberationists’ stated arguments on their own terms, not ignore and bypass those arguments as though they didn’t exist.

The core of the problem is that the homosexual liberationists make claim to a human subjectivity which, they say, is being cruelly ignored and suppressed by the moral traditionalists. If the moral traditionalists are to prevail in this vitally important debate, they need to acknowledge that subjectivity, even as they demonstrate that the choices it is making are wrong, disastrously wrong for the moral health of individuals, of families, and, to the extent that they becomes publicly legitimized, of our entire civilization.

As someone who knows several homosexuals personally, I would like to make a couple of observations: 1) Long-term monogamous homosexual relationships exist only amongst lesbians to any degree. Male homosexuals are notoriously promiscuous - even those in so-called “marriage” arrangements practice a Bill Clinton style of ‘open marriage.’ 2) One of the more revealing comments made to my spouse by a gay friend was in reponse to the idea of a sex-change operation (If you always felt more like a girl, why not have the operation?): He stated if he were to have the operation, he would then have to become a lesbian.

Another question that should be addressed from a theological point of view is why does the scripture (even in the original Hebrew and Greek) use such strong and forceful terms in condemning this particular sin? Surely it has something to do with the fundamental rebellion against God’s established order inherent in this type of behavior. The idea (now being advanced by Republican leaders like Mark Racicot and Orrin Hatch) that the gay agenda crowd can be mollified or bought off with hate-crimes legislation and domestic partner benefits is absurd. Those items are merely the beginning of their real agenda. Even a perfunctory glance at GLSENs agenda reveals nothing less than a complete war against traditional marriage and family altogether (“heterosexism”). Since they typically don’t reproduce themselves, the gay agenda crowd must continually find sufficient fresh blood to replace those dying off - hence their ferocity in going after the Boy Scouts and infiltration of the Catholic Priesthood. Santorum got it right: If we give legal sanction to this behavior, then what possible basis would there be for denying legal protection for polygamy, bestiality and any other number of perversions? Is this the freedom that soldiers from the Revolution to Iraq sacrificed their lives for? If it is, we all may want to go and live in Dhimmitude under the Muslims, as there will be nothing left to defend in this society.

Posted by: Carl on May 6, 2003 3:20 AM

An excellent discussion. I tend to think that homosexuality is a vice freely chosen but the overriding forms that vice takes are determined by an entrenched counter-culture. This counter-culture is very good at seeking out and evangelizing other gays to it’s cause in a way like no other vice if which I can think. It’s tempting to focus on the bizarre aspects of the gay sub-culture and write them off as mentally disordered. Perhaps it’s more useful to think of homosexuality as part of a cluster of several different sexual vices like pedophilia that are more or less difficult to eradicate from an individual.

The medical model proposed by Dobson (or any medical model for that matter) is of limited utility. It’s clear that homosexuality is not a genuine mental disorder like schizophrenia.

Posted by: Jason Eubanks on May 6, 2003 5:14 AM

On Mr. Auster’s final concern, it seems that the general attitude toward sex makes it impossible to deal with homosexuality reasonably.

If sexual morality treats sex as something with a specific nature and definite irreplaceable function in human life, then complaints that idiosyncratic human subjectivity is being ignored in some particular case lose their force. On the other hand, if sexual activity between men and women is always OK, as long as precautions are taken to avoid unwanted consequences, because it’s the feelings of the participants that count, then it does become difficult to explain why other sexual activity should be treated differently.

The basic problem I think is that it’s hard to complain about the vices of others without calling one’s own vices in question.

One reason Mr. Auster finds the characterization of homosexuality as a “freely chosen vice” unsatisfactory is that “… it doesn’t account for the fact, described by some psychologists, that homosexuals are driven to their behavior by an uncontrollable anxiety which they experience if they don’t engage in the behavior.”

Dedicated smokers, drinkers and druggies experience uncontrollable anxiety when they are deprived of their fixes. But that doesn’t mean they were born smokers, drinkers or crank heads.

Everyone has urges to satisfy, but the ways to satisfaction vary all over the map, having been marked by experiences and peer groups. Few people enjoyed their first cigarette; few homosexuals may have enjoyed their first anal penetration. But it grew on them - in more ways than one, haha.

This is what’s wrong with the saying that “familiarity breeds contempt”. Comfort food is defined by familiarity, but it will vary greatly from time to time and civilization to civilization. On a hot day I might miss a beer, while a Tibetan might miss his tea with yak butter. Not that this is morally equivalent to “sexual preferences”; I only mean to illustrate the principle of familiarity.

Posted by: Wim on May 6, 2003 1:51 PM

I am not sure why the born/chosen question is relevant. It comes up all the time, so it must be perceived as important, but it makes no rational sense to raise it. If murder is objectively wrong then it doesn’t matter whether people are born murderers or if they choose murder; either way murder is still objectively wrong and the law of the land should reflect that objective moral reality.

The importance of the born/chosen distinction to moderns seems to arise specifically from the modern exhaltation of the human will. Half way on the road to modernism it began to be viewed as fundamentally unfair to discriminate based on what one IS, but fair enough to discriminate based on what one DOES. To be fully modern though we become self-willed creations, so even what we ARE becomes a matter of what we assert with our wills (a great example, and perhaps the founding example for liberalism, is “freedom of religion” — religious affiliation became simultaneously a freely chosen state subject only to the will and a fundamental ontic category of what one IS, and therefore a classification against which the law cannot discriminate, at the same time).

So in our postmodern world it remains presumptively unfair to discriminate based on what we are, and we are what we choose ourselves to be, so it is fundamentally unfair (read: a violation of equal freedom) to discriminate based on what we choose ourselves to be.

This is all a bunch of liberal nonsense, of course, the only function of which is to facilitate rebellion against the traditional objective moral order. The “freedom and equality” master narrative, and its sub-narrative about what we ARE versus what we DO, contains no objective truth in it. Functionally the purpose of such freedom-speech and equality-speech is solely to emancipate humanity from the perceived tyranny of the traditional moral order.

From the perspective of objective Christian morality we expect that what people ARE is morally and spiritually fallen. We also expect political laws to uphold what is moral in a reasonable way, to the extent Christians have any say in the matter. We therefore expect that there will be laws that discriminate with full police power against what certain classes of people ARE. Therefore the distinction between what we ARE and what we DO may be academically interesting in some way, but it cannot provide a dividing line between where we should and should not discriminate politically.

Posted by: Matt on May 6, 2003 6:24 PM

This is something on the odd occasion I’ve contemplated, but am not sure of what the result might be. If all social and legal taboos were lifted regarding homosexuality, would the number of self-identified gays increase or decrease? Is part of the attraction its “forbidden fruit” nature?

Posted by: Macallan on May 6, 2003 9:45 PM

For the moment I just want to say I agree with Mr. Kalb’s point that liberation of non-marital normal sex makes it hard or impossible to have a taboo against homosexual sex. So, instead of framing the issue as “Heterosexuality is good, and homosexuality is a vice,” it would be better to frame the issue as “Heterosexual MONOGAMY is the ideal, and homosexuality is a vice.” In a society that has the ideal of monogamy, there will still be some extra marital sex, obviously. But, since extra-marital sex per se is not being liberated, but rather is being seen as a deviation from the ideal of marriage, homosexuality would not be liberated either.

Does that reformulation of the argument meet Mr. Kalb’s concerns?

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 6, 2003 10:53 PM

Actually, it seems to me the standard has to be something a bit more definite than heterosexual monogamy. For the specifics, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (One of the things that drew me to Catholicism was that in 1968 the only guy in the world who knew anything about sex was a lifelong celibate who always struck me as being on the feminine side, Paul VI. How, I asked myself, could that come about?)

As a political conservative who happens to be gay, I am perpetually amused by the ferocity of anti-homosexual arguments by supposedly heterosexual polemicists.

The insights and experience of actual gay people are generally ignored while these straight (usually) men install themselves as experts on the subject. (One wonders where they acquired all this familiarity with the topic.) Some of the comments posted in response to Mr. Auster’s piece, purporting to accurately describe the motivations and impulses of gay (usually) men, demonstrate this point effectively.

This pose of mastery is in the same category of usefulness as men who pose as experts on the experiences of women. Clearly one can make observations from the outside of the subjective experience, but one can never be as expert about it as the one actually experiencing it.

This is why I never argue with people who enjoy “The West Wing.”

In order for anyone’s comments on homosexuality to be persuasive to a disinterested observer, it seems to me, the biases and presumptions of the commentator need to be known. The usefulness of purple language or Scriptural quotation in the art of convincing is relative to the unspoken worldview and psychology of the speaker. Regardless of the inner certainty of one’s moral rectitude, we are all also human and therefore equally susceptible to the errors inherent in this condition.

It is also necessary to disentangle one’s understanding of homosexuality from how the left views it. Sexual orientation is not political orientation. Conflating the two serves no useful purpose, and in fact is morally equivalent to the left’s cavalier presumption that the two, if not related, ought to be.

Thus I look forward to thoughtful responses to Mr. Auster’s concluding paragraph. I especially can’t wait to see how anyone can actually “acknowledge that subjectivity, even as [he] demonstrate[s] that the choices it is making are wrong.”

Posted by: Marty on May 7, 2003 2:37 PM

Marty,

You bring up some good points. As I once told a gay friend, “I can certainly sympathize, but I can’t empathize,” I’m aware of the fact that this is outside my makeup to really understand. My only concern, is this too much like the “chickenhawk” argument?

Posted by: Macallan on May 7, 2003 3:05 PM

Macallan, if you’re a guy and you’re wearing makeup, you should be able to at least empathize.

Sorry. Cheap shot.

Seriously: I’m not sure what the “chickenhawk” argument is.

Posted by: Marty on May 7, 2003 5:31 PM

LOL. I’ll have to take your word for it.

The chickenhawk argument is that only people who have fought in wars should set war policy or advocate policy. There is also the “only women who been in that position” can understand the abortion debate school of…err…’thought’.

Posted by: Macallan on May 7, 2003 6:07 PM

Matt states that he’s “…not sure why the born/chosen question is relevant,” and that its importance “…seems to arise specifically from the modern exhaltation of the human will.”

It must be Matt’s own exaltation of the human will that makes him continue these exhalations of “exhaltation”.

In any case, we know very well why the born/chosen question is relevant, and it has little to do with the exaltation of will.

Having seen the success of the American Civil Rights movement, the homo lobby decided that the road to societal acceptance was to adopt the same terms, i.e. to claim that the practice of homosexuality was just as immutable as having dark skin, and therefore should gain legal protection (and in time, affirmative action). So while you could argue these terms have been forced upon us, that doesn’t eliminate the need to address them.

Gut the reality of “being that way”, and you’ve killed that argument.

Posted by: Wim on May 7, 2003 7:28 PM

Wim writes:
“So while you could argue these terms have been forced upon us, that doesn’t eliminate the need to address them.”

Whether something is objectively relevant is a different question from whether it is polemically relevant, though. Wim is right that I used the spelling “exhaltation” specifically for his benefit though.

Posted by: Matt on May 7, 2003 8:24 PM

Marty writes:
“Thus I look forward to thoughtful responses to Mr. Auster’s concluding paragraph. I especially can’t wait to see how anyone can actually “acknowledge that subjectivity, even as [he] demonstrate[s] that the choices it is making are wrong.””

I don’t see how Mr. Auster’s posed dilemma is different from the epistemic problem in general, though. Everyone has his own subjective capacities and perceptions. Some people conclude that this rules out the possibility of knowing anything at all, but for those of us who think that knowledge and truth have some authoritative (but imperfect) relation independent of the human will the sodomy question is no more puzzling than the theft question, the murder question, etc.

The fact that many sodomites lobby for public recognition of a legitimacy to their acts, and subjectively really really want those acts to receive protected legal status, does not pose any more of a subjectivity problem than any other moral/legal question. Either everything about traditional morality is called into question or some additional reason to treat sodomy as a special case must be given.

It remains to be explained why “sodomy is wrong” is more difficult to know than “stealing is wrong”, and the burden of proof is on those who would call into question those pieces of traditional moral knowledge. Harm to others is the most common line of discussion, but Mr. Kalb has already dealt with it thoroughly.

Posted by: Matt on May 7, 2003 8:50 PM

First, I acknowledge that my article was a bit overly complicated. I think this was due both to the complexity of the issues themselves and to the fact that I was trying to work my way through them dialectically rather than present a finished conclusion, since I don’t yet have a conclusion but am looking for the best answer with the help of others. My basic view is that in many cases the FRI argument is correct that homosexual conduct is a vice, period. However, I am hesitant to accept that as the comprehensive, final statement of the subject. So I was trying to introduce more nuance into the discussion, while remaining open to the possibility that that attempt is wrong. (How’s that for a tortured handling of the subject?)

Is this true? I don’t know. Some gay couples certainly seem to have a stable, loyal relationships, but who knows? Has there been any study on this?

“Santorum got it right: If we give legal sanction to this behavior, then what possible basis would there be for denying legal protection for polygamy, bestiality and any other number of perversions?”—Carl

While this point is true, conservatives make a mistake in relying too much on the argument, “X is wrong because it leads to Y.” If X is wrong, we’ve got to show that X is wrong, not just say that it’s wrong because it may lead to some other wrong thing.

“I tend to think that homosexuality is a vice freely chosen but the overriding forms that vice takes are determined by an entrenched counter-culture. This counter-culture is very good at seeking out and evangelizing other gays to its cause in a way like no other vice if which I can think.”—Jason Eubanks

Yes. What is unusual about this issue is that homosexuality is both a classic individual vice AND an aggressive radical agenda to destroy society as we know it. So it is both the epitome of vice (as I said in another thread) AND the epitome of cultural leftism.

“Dedicated smokers, drinkers and druggies experience uncontrollable anxiety when they are deprived of their fixes. But that doesn’t mean they were born smokers, drinkers or crank heads.”—Wim

This supports the view that it makes no difference whether the behavior is absolutely “freely” chosen (as the term “sexual preference” suggests), or whether it is a deeply ingrained habit that the person subjectively feels he has no choice about, since, in the latter case, the habit is itself the product of earlier free choices.

“The importance of the born/chosen distinction to moderns seems to arise specifically from the modern exhaltation of the human will. Half way on the road to modernism it began to be viewed as fundamentally unfair to discriminate based on what one IS, but fair enough to discriminate based on what one DOES. To be fully modern though we become self-willed creations, so even what we ARE becomes a matter of what we assert with our wills (a great example, and perhaps the founding example for liberalism, is ‘freedom of religion’ — religious affiliation became simultaneously a freely chosen state subject only to the will and a fundamental ontic category of what one IS, and therefore a classification against which the law cannot discriminate, at the same time) … So in our postmodern world it remains presumptively unfair to discriminate based on what we are, and we are what we choose ourselves to be, so it is fundamentally unfair (read: a violation of equal freedom) to discriminate based on what we choose ourselves to be.”—Matt

A fascinating point. If I may restate: Postmodern liberalism says that we will everything that we are. But instead of that notion leading to the idea that there can be discrimination against what a person is (since it was chosen), it radically EXPANDS the areas where there can be no discrimination, because no matter how extreme the status that you choose, once you have chosen it, it becomes what you are, and therefore cannot be a basis of discrimination.

“From the perspective of objective Christian morality we expect that what people ARE is morally and spiritually fallen. We also expect political laws to uphold what is moral in a reasonable way, to the extent Christians have any say in the matter. We therefore expect that there will be laws that discriminate with full police power against what certain classes of people ARE. Therefore the distinction between what we ARE and what we DO may be academically interesting in some way, but it cannot provide a dividing line between where we should and should not discriminate politically.”—Matt

This comes close to addressing the concluding question in my article, though whether satisfactorily or not I don’t know. Matt is saying in effect: “Fine, let’s acknowledge the subjective state of homosexuals. But that does not change the fact that the behavior is wrong and should not be allowed.”

“If all social and legal taboos were lifted regarding homosexuality, would the number of self-identified gays increase or decrease? Is part of the attraction its ‘forbidden fruit’ nature?”—Macallan

I think the evidence of history suggests that it would increase. Societies that absolutely forbid homosexuality have very little or none of it. Societies that permit it have lots of it. Why, after all, did God tell Israel that they must not do those awful things—homosexuality, temple prostitution, etc. etc.—that the surroundings nations did? Because in the absence of a law forbidding those things, people did them. That’s what’s so great about the moral law, in the sexual area as elsewhere: it protects us from our own weaknesses and vulnerabilities as human beings. It is, in word, compassionate.

“[I]t would be better to frame the issue as ‘Heterosexual MONOGAMY is the ideal, and homosexuality is a vice.’ In a society that has the ideal of monogamy, there will still be some extra marital sex, obviously. But, since extra-marital sex per se is not being liberated, but rather is being seen as a deviation from the ideal of marriage, homosexuality would not be liberated either. Does that reformulation of the argument meet Mr. Kalb’s concerns?”—Lawrence Auster

“Actually, it seems to me the standard has to be something a bit more definite than heterosexual monogamy. For the specifics, see the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”—Jim Kalb

In an e-mail, Mr. Kalb explained what he meant:

“‘More definite’ means ‘heterosexual monogamy plus’ and the ‘plus’ was filled in by the known position of the Catholic Church that e.g. contraception and heterosexual sodomy are at odds with the nature of the marital union and therefore no-nos.”

Are we to understand from this that if society allows a man to pleasure his wife orally, that will make it impossible for society to prevent homosexual liberation? Maybe, but the argument to prove this would have to be made.

Still, there is a core to Mr. Kalb’s argument that may be the key to the whole discussion.

If we say that there is a natural inevitability in the way that men and women are attracted to each other, and that therefore the proper expression of that attraction (i.e. in marriage) is normal and lawful, that argument leaves open the door for homosexuals to say, “Hey, as far as we’re concerned, there is a natural inevitability in the way that gay men are attracted to each other, and that therefore the proper expression of that attraction is normal and lawful. Therefore not only is gay attraction natural and inevitable, but gay marriage is needed to provide the moral framework for the expression of that attraction.”

But if, following Mr. Kalb’s promptings based on the Catholic Catechism, we restrict the statement about the goodness of heterosexual relations to normal intercourse within marriage, excluding sodomy, then the pro-homosexual argument is precluded. If there is no natural inevitability about heterosexual sodomy, then there can be no natural inevitability about homosexual sodomy. In effect, the category of homosexuality is eliminated, and we are left with the category of sodomy, which is seen as immoral.

“As a political conservative who happens to be gay, I am perpetually amused by the ferocity of anti-homosexual arguments by supposedly heterosexual polemicists.”—Marty

May I advise Marty that to open a discussion by condescendingly remarking that one is “amused” by the arguments of one’s opponents is unpleasant and ought to be avoided. If you have an argument, make it. Don’t tell people who are engaged in a serious discussion that they “amuse” you.

“The insights and experience of actual gay people are generally ignored while these straight (usually) men install themselves as experts on the subject. (One wonders where they acquired all this familiarity with the topic.) Some of the comments posted in response to Mr. Auster’s piece, purporting to accurately describe the motivations and impulses of gay (usually) men, demonstrate this point effectively.”—Marty

By Marty’s standards, no one except homosexuals could discuss the morality of homosexuality, and no one except women could discuss the morality of abortion, and no one except blacks could discuss the morality of racial preferences for blacks. If I were to write as Marty does, I would say that I was “amused” by this argument.

“This pose of mastery is in the same category of usefulness as men who pose as experts on the experiences of women. Clearly one can make observations from the outside of the subjective experience, but one can never be as expert about it as the one actually experiencing it.”—Marty

One wonders what kind of conservative would use a phrase like “pose of mastery,” which would seem to arise from the same place as “phallocentric hierarchy,” “Orientalism,” “oppressive Western linearity” and so on. I get the sense that Marty is really a libertarian and not a conservative.

“Having seen the success of the American Civil Rights movement, the homo lobby decided that the road to societal acceptance was to adopt the same terms, i.e. to claim that the practice of homosexuality was just as immutable as having dark skin, and therefore should gain legal protection (and in time, affirmative action).”—Wim

Is there necessarily a contradiction between Matt’s and Wim’s views? It seems to me that Matt’s idea helps explain how the adoption by the gay liberationists of a civil rights paradigm was successful. Exalting the will, the gays freely chose more and more, and whatever they chose became “what they were” and thus as deserving of protection as having dark skin.

“Gut the reality of ‘being that way’, and you’ve killed that argument.”—Wim

But what if it cannot be completely gutted? Then Matt’s argument (that what one is can be as legitimately prohibited as what one does) becomes philosophically and pragmatically central.

“It remains to be explained why ‘sodomy is wrong’ is more difficult to know than ‘stealing is wrong.’”—Matt

No one is claiming that the desire to steal is a fundamental aspect of his being and thus a right. Still, I acknowledge the possibility that Matt’s approach—that homosexual conduct is wrong, period, and should not be permitted—may be the best approach. It might be inconceivable in our present society. But we are here discussing how the good society would organize itself.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 8, 2003 2:08 AM

Mr. Auster addressed quite a few commenters in his post, and I found it quite helpful. A minor quibble with his restatement of my position, though:

Mr. Auster restates my basic contention as follows:
“homosexual conduct is wrong, period, and should not be permitted”

Whether sodomy (homosexual or otherwise) should be permitted or not, and the enforcements and penalties that go along with any formal legal restriction, are pragmatic matters that should be judged prudentially by responsible political leaders. The law should always be moral, but by the same token it shouldn’t attempt to comprehensively define and enforce what it is to be moral. The latter would be a terrible tyranny and could only be the result of a profound arrogance, itself a terrible vice.

So I would break my assertion into two parts:

1) Sodomy is immoral, period (as are adultery, contraception, and other sexual sins). It should never be treated formally and publicly as if it were not immoral.

2) What the law should actually require and enforce is a matter of prudential judgement. The law need not (and indeed should not) comprehensively enforce what is morally right, but it should support the good and at the least should be consistent with it.

Specifically with respect to #2, I think the compromise of having anti-sodomy laws that are for the most part unenforced — but that nevertheless leave the option of enforcement open when sodomy is used as a political weapon to threaten public morality, as opposed to a private vice — can be a pragmatically useful approach. I am therefore against the elimination of the sparsely enforced anti-sodomy laws already in place.

Posted by: Matt on May 8, 2003 3:55 AM

One more quick comment:

Mr. Auster wrote:
“Exalting the will, the gays freely chose more and more, and whatever they chose became “what they were” and thus as deserving of protection as having dark skin.”

I will emphasize here again that a freely chosen ontic status — that of one’s religious affiliation — was afforded legal protection by liberalism long before anyone worried too much about skin color as a discriminand. So the “we are what we will, and you can’t discriminate against what we are” theme has been around in liberal thought for a long time.

Posted by: Matt on May 8, 2003 4:18 AM

It’s not clear to me that John pleasuring Mary in the way Mr. Auster mentions is so different from Joe doing the same for Bill. One might argue that there is a natural fittingness in heterosexual relations, but the nature of the act seems decidedly to attenuate natural fittingness. One might also argue that in the former case the act is ancillary to marriage and so OK. On the face of it, though, the act replaces rather than acts as an adjunct to the objective functional union of two bodies that distinguishes marital union from e.g. gay couplings. It is that union, pointing beyond itself, that enables marital union to make sense of the dual nature of sex (the intense focus on a particular person, and also the striving toward the unlimited).

Mr. Auster wrote:
“If there is no natural inevitability about heterosexual sodomy, then there can be no natural inevitability about homosexual sodomy.”

Natural inevitability cannot be the measure of whether something is considered a good versus an evil. Death is naturally inevitable without question; and in fact it is interesting that liberalism also treats death as a good that it should be possible to freely choose. The link between sodomy, abortion, and suicide is a close one, as Mother Theresa (among others) observed.

Posted by: Matt on May 8, 2003 10:26 AM

I think Matt in his comment of 3:55 AM has given the best statement of the problem so far, one that to my mind (with the exception of the point about contraception, which I’m not convinced on) could serve as the basis of a viable and presentable traditionalist position:

“1) Sodomy is immoral, period (as are adultery, contraception, and other sexual sins). It should never be treated formally and publicly as if it were not immoral.

“2) What the law should actually require and enforce is a matter of prudential judgement. The law need not (and indeed should not) comprehensively enforce what is morally right, but it should support the good and at the least should be consistent with it.”

On a secondary point, I regret that Matt rejects my “natural inevitability” argument, which I thought neatly solved certain problems.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 8, 2003 11:48 AM

May I thank Mr. Auster for his lecture on how to argue, and suggest that he read what is written and comment on that, and not on something else. So, for instance, the amusement I referred to was about the “ferocity” of anti-homosexual polemics, not the arguments or arguers.

Further, if condescension is an error, why does he engage in the practice himself with his comments regarding my alleged libertarianism, as opposed to my conservatism?

Well, regardless, let me correct his misreading of my comments about the experiences of gay people being ignored by anti-homosexual polemicists.

I did not say that arguments labeling homesexuality or homosexual behavior immoral cannot be made by non-homosexuals. I simply observed that too many of these arguments condescendingly ignore the data that homosexuals report of their own experiences. This in turn allows them to ignore some important issues that we raise. (This, in fact, underlies Mr. Auster’s point.)

For instance, a number of the posts in this thread take it as a given that we choose our orientation, as if there is some kind of flea market for human sexual orientation and we went to the cheapest, gaudiest, tawdriest bins.

My own experience and struggles with my sexual orientation suggest something much different.

Thought experiment: if sexuality is something we choose, then presumably every heterosexual reading this could choose to become homosexual right now. Not engage in homosexual behavior, but to adopt an entirely different sexual orientation.

This also is a challenge to some of the presumptions in previous posts that the issue is solely one of behavior. In order to make this assertion, one must ignore the reports of the experience of homosexuals, as well as their own experience. I am gay regardless of whether I engage in sexual activity with men or women—or whether I have sex at all.

Go back to my thought experiment: if straight readers engaged in homosexual behavior, would that make them homosexual?

Until polemicists get these issues, uh, straight in their minds, they will not be able to come up with a morally or intellectually satisfactory response to Mr. Auster’s core question.

On both the “nature/nurture” and the “orientation/behavior” question, the data from homosexuals’ own experience must be accounted for in order to produce a comprehensive argument regarding it. If we report that we did not choose our orientation, those who discount this information while casting moral aspersions upon us have a solemn duty to explain the basis for their choosing to ignore it.

Posted by: Marty on May 8, 2003 12:56 PM

Marty writes:
“For instance, a number of the posts in this thread take it as a given that we choose our orientation, as if there is some kind of flea market for human sexual orientation and we went to the cheapest, gaudiest, tawdriest bins.”

I find myself in complete agreement with Marty on this specific point. I don’t have a strong opinion on what components of sexual desire are willed and what components are unwilled, and I think the focus on that distinction distorts the discussion. Desire of any sort must always entail an unwilled modality; in fact any confrontation with the truth will always involve unwilled modalities, and our own desires are one of the truths that we face (even while our choices have played a part in shaping those desires).

Where I differ from most is that I don’t think the willed/unwilled modalities are objectively relevant to a determination of what is right and wrong. I’ve had a strong unwilled urge to choke the living **** out of certain individuals before; a wish I would rather not have had. I’ve felt substantial (involuntary) attraction to the opposite sex in contexts where acting on that attraction — or even encouraging it improperly within myself — would be morally wrong. All of us who are human have had these sorts of experiences. The unwilled modality of our urges, even if those urges are naturally inevitable, cannot be asserted to establish the moral goodness of acting on them or to cast doubt on a traditional moral prohibition.

Posted by: Matt on May 8, 2003 1:21 PM

A further (rather obvious I suppose, but worth emphasizing) thought on “naturally inevitable”: fecund heterosexual sex acts are naturally inevitable in a way in which homosexual and other deliberately sterile sex acts are not. Without the former there are no human beings at all; the latter are at best naturally irrelevant in this ontic sense. Certainly humanity can exist without them. Furthermore, treating sexual pleasure as a superior good to fecundity rather than a mode of it is to treat a specific sort of pleasure as superior to something necessary for human existence. To treat deliberately sterile sex as a stand-alone good is to treat something necessary for any human life at all as a secondary good at the feet of man’s will. It is to treat life as an option for man to choose at his pleasure; and therefore death as well. So it is ultimately to treat death as a positive good that can be chosen at man’s pleasure.

Posted by: Matt on May 8, 2003 2:13 PM

I suppose in my last comment I rejected the notion that I rejected Mr. Auster’s natural inevitability argument. What I (fumblingly attempted to) reject is the notion that the natural inevitability of urges has any bearing on the objective morality of acts; I am not clear on whether Mr. Auster thinks that they do.

Posted by: Matt on May 8, 2003 2:26 PM

I don’t understand Matt’s several responses to my “natural inevitability” argument. I thought I was making a straightforward and useful argument that he and Mr. Kalb (both men now being Catholics) would approve, i.e., that by following the lines of the Catholic catechism and defining the sexual ideal in restrictive terms as heterosexual marriage sans sodomy, a particular argument for the legitimization of homosexual sodomy is closed.

Since this discussion is so long, I’ll quote what I originally said:

Still, there is a core to Mr. Kalb’s argument that may be the key to the whole discussion.

If we say that there is a natural inevitability in the way that men and women are attracted to each other, and that therefore the proper expression of that attraction (i.e. in marriage) is normal and lawful, that argument leaves open the door for homosexuals to say, “Hey, as far as we’re concerned, there is a natural inevitability in the way that gay men are attracted to each other, and that therefore the proper expression of that attraction is normal and lawful. Therefore not only is gay attraction natural and inevitable, but gay marriage is needed to provide the moral framework for the expression of that attraction.”

But if, following Mr. Kalb’s promptings based on the Catholic Catechism, we restrict the statement about the goodness of heterosexual relations to normal intercourse within marriage, excluding sodomy, then the pro-homosexual argument is precluded. If there is no natural inevitability about heterosexual sodomy, then there can be no natural inevitability about homosexual sodomy. In effect, the category of homosexuality is eliminated, and we are left with the category of sodomy, which is seen as immoral.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 9, 2003 6:33 PM

I must admit, I don’t understand three-fourths of what you guys say on this site. It seems to me that you often twist yourselves into all kinds of intellectual knots over what are at base very simple, straightforward questions. In this case, the question is simply “Does nature act for an end?” If nature does indeed act for an end, then we, along with all of nature, have been designed to achieve some end of which we ourselves are not the authors. Thus, for instance, our bodies have been designed to some purpose, and right reason dictates that we should seek to fulfill that purpose and reject all contrary or contradictory ends. Nature does not supply man with an outie, woman with an innie, and then dictate that every time the two come together ejaculation occur for the purpose of mere sensual pleasure or of personal psychological “growth.” Nature’s purpose is clearly the procreation of children, and it is to that end that right reason seeks to order the sexual act.

Moreover, the fact that defects or monstrosities occur in no way undermines the objective desirability of what nature intends or the undesirability of what she doesn’t intend. The fact that a man is born with no legs does not vitiate the plain and obvious fact that man is intended by nature to be mobile. The fact that a man is born without sight somewhere doesn’t somehow prove that man is not intended to see. Likewise, a man born with unnatural sexual desires, EVEN IF THEY ARE INBORN AND UNAVOIDABLE, in no way demonstrates that the sexual act is not, in fact, intended by nature for the sake of procreation.

For the homosexual to claim that gay attraction is “natural” is exactly like the blind man or legless man trying to claim that his condition is “natural.” Sure, it’s natural in the sense that he and his blindness (or leglessness) actually exist in nature, but it is manifestly unnatural in the sense that his blindness or leglessness is clearly not what nature intends for the creature known as “man.”

Posted by: Bubba on May 9, 2003 9:22 PM

Bubba, I share your feelings about the intellectual knots some contributions get twisted into. But I’m not sure your comparisons are helpful.

You say that “For the homosexual to claim that gay attraction is “natural” is exactly like the blind man or legless man trying to claim that his condition is “natural.”” You say this, of course, because no blind or legless man is going to claim such a thing; instead he would prefer to possess full physical faculties, same as everyone else.

But since he is thus handicapped, we are not going to criticize his efforts to cope, whether those consist of using artificial legs, learning Braille, or whatever else works for him.

What your comparison indicates is that you’ve accepted the homosexuals’ “inborn” argument as physically true but you refuse to accept the resulting behavior. But in the present state of public opinion, it is important to establish that the “inborn” claim is phony, because a whole lot of public policy is being based on it. That’s why I hate to see blind or legless people brought in here.

Besides, the homosexual lobby claims something quite different from the blind or the lame: homosexuals don’t lack the right equipment, they just don’t wish to use it for the purposes intended.

Many but not all homosexuals claim this wish is “inborn”; and the interesting part is that the “inborn” claimants maintain a mutual support society with the so-called trans-gendered people. (This is why you often hear them speak of the “Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Community”, all in one long breath.) While homosexuals have the right equipment but the wrong desires, Transgenders claim to have the right desires but the wrong equipment: not that there’s anything physically wrong but they are convinced they should have been born the opposite sex and seek to achieve that after the fact by means of very expensive surgery, usually at taxpayers’ expense. I’ve never understood why such people should not be given the same treatment traditionally reserved for those who claimed they were really Napoleon or Teddy Roosevelt. Remember “Arsenic and Old Lace”? CHAAAARGE!!! They also have a serious religious conflict because while most are agnostic, for their “transgender” convictions to stand they must believe in a soul that is quite distinct from the body.

Anyway, all these groups thrive on nonsense, and too many people have bought it.

I agree with that completely. What I don’t know is where that leaves the overall state of Mr. Auster’s concerns, which prompted his original article:

“Some homosexual spokesmen—Andrew Sullivan comes to mind—claim that there is no subjective difference between the two, and that therefore to treat homosexual relationships as offensive and anti-social is terribly unfair and dehumanizing to homosexuals. Whether this idea is valid or not, it seems to me that we conservatives fail to meet the other side’s position when we declare that homosexual conduct is a sin, period.”

It seems that in the original article Mr. Auster was concerned about addressing the subjective state of the homosexual and thought we had to counter an argument from subjective equivalence of urges rather than morally evaluating acts. At this point I simply do not know if that phenomenological approach is still necessary in Mr. Auster’s view. Whether it is or not seems to me to depend on whether Mr. Auster considers urges, in addition to acts, to fall under the (putative) schema of natural inevitability.

In other words, is there any reason at this point for traditionalists to accept (and attempt to counter) the homosexual argument from subjective equivalence of urges? Or is it sufficient at this point to say that acts of sodomy are sins, period?

The discussion strikes me as odd in the following way: Mr. Auster said:

“In other words, from the point of view of the homosexuals themselves, is their homosexual attraction always and fundamentally different from the attraction of a man toward a woman?”

The presumption underlying the question is that the manner and degree of temptation to sin affects whether or not an act objectively is a sin. That isn’t just phenomenology; it is outright relativism.

Posted by: Matt on May 10, 2003 5:31 AM

Bubba’s explanation is goes right to the heart of the matter; a man may be born blind, but the privation of blindness doesn’t make blindness natural and thus a good. Likewise a propensity towards homosexuality may have a cause, but the cause is not due to something which exists per se, but due to something which does not exist. The propensity towards homosexuality is a privation of something which should exist.

I’ve been wondering where this lack of being ‘exists’ which causes the propensity towards homosexuality. If it’s physical, how can men be corrupted in such a way as to cause this propensity or habit, and if it is not physical, how can children be born with it?

But just because someone is born with a propensity, does not make the acting on that propensity a good. The propensity towards homosexuality is a cross to be born, not an unnatural desire to be acted upon.

Posted by: F. Salzer on May 10, 2003 5:58 AM

A further musing, if the privation is in the material soul, which seems the only explanation for how it can be a privation both at birth and a corruption which can occur later in life, in what part of the material soul is this privation found?

Posted by: F. Salzer on May 10, 2003 6:13 AM

To Matt,

If my statements seem inconsistent, that is because, from the beginning of this discussion, I have not been stating a set view (I did not have one) but rather posing a problem and trying to answer it. And a tentative approach to the problem that I seem to have arrived at is that society should not recognize desires for heterosexual sodomy as legitimate or moral, regardless of how subjectively pressing or “naturally inevitable” such desires may seem to the person himself. Therefore the same restrictions would logically and fairly apply to desires for homosexual sodomy. That is my tentative answer to the problem of subjectivity that I raised.

Yet that answer does not entirely contradict what I said at the beginning:

“If the moral traditionalists are to prevail in this vitally important debate, they need to acknowledge that subjectivity, even as they demonstrate that the choices it is making are wrong, disastrously wrong for the moral health of individuals, of families, and, to the extent that they becomes publicly legitimized, of our entire civilization.”

And (making an exception to my general rule of ignoring him) let me also add that I like F. Salzer’s Augustinian analysis of homosexuality, in which the propensity towards homosexuality (like sin generally) is seen not as something that exists, but as a privation of something which should exist.

Posted by: Lawrence Auster on May 10, 2003 11:09 AM

Mr. Auster: you say “…the choices it is making are wrong, disastrously wrong for the moral health of individuals, of families, and, to the extent that they becomes publicly legitimized, of our entire civilization.”

True, but wouldn’t we achieve more by pointing out those same choices have been disastrous for the PHYSICAl health of all those parties? That is, unless you decline to go beyond the purely Catholic aspects of this matter.

Posted by: Wim on May 10, 2003 8:37 PM

“[W]ouldn’t we achieve more by pointing out those same choices have been disastrous for the PHYSICAl health of all those parties?”

Critics emphasize the physical consequences all the time, but that only goes to the more extreme behaviors; it does not touch on the “responsible” behaviors which, by being accepted as “mainstream,” are more subversive of social and moral order than the extreme behaviors.

Let us never forget that Norman Podhoretz wrote in the mid 1990s that the demand of gays to have marriages represented a victory for conservatism. In other words, if gays stopped their “extreme” conduct and adopted “responsible” conduct, and then sought to get their “responsible” relationships formally recognized as legal marriages, that meant (in Podhoretz’s mind) that gay liberation was no longer threatening social order. The truth, of course, is that the movement to redefine marriage is far more threatening to social order than the earlier, openly disruptive gay liberation movement that Podhoretz was concerned about. But that’s where you end up when you think of homosexual liberation as primarily a public health issue rather than a moral issue.